After losing LS elections, Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra enters RS poll fray
Mumbai, Jun 13: Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar’s wife Sunetra on Thursday filed nomination papers as the NCP candidate for the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, days after she lost the Lok Sabha polls from Baramati.
Incidentally, barring leaders from the NCP, no politician from the Ajit Pawar-led party's allies in the ruling Mahayuti -- the BJP and the Shiv Sena -- was present when Sunetra Pawar filed her nomination at the Vidhan Bhavan in south Mumbai.
Senior NCP leaders like Rajya Sabha member Praful Patel, Maharashtra cabinet minister Chhagan Bhujbal, party's state unit president and Lok Sabha MP-elect Sunil Tatkare and legislative assembly deputy speaker Narhari Zirwal were present at the filing of the nomination.
Bhujbal said though he was keen on contesting the Rajya Sabha polls, he was not upset with Sunetra Pawar’s nomination, which he described as a "collective decision" of the party.
In the just-concluded Lok Sabha elections, Sunetra Pawar lost from the Baramati constituency in Pune district, where her sister-in-law Supriya Sule, the daughter of NCP (SP) president Sharad Pawar, registered her fourth consecutive win.
“The NCP has decided to field Sunetra Pawar for the Rajya Sabha elections. Even I was keen on contesting the elections, but during a meeting on Wednesday evening, party leaders finalised her name,” said Bhujbal.
The Rajya Sabha secretariat has notified ten vacancies in the Upper House -- two each in Assam, Bihar and Maharashtra, and one each in Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tripura.
These seats have fallen vacant after the sitting members got elected to the Lok Sabha in the just concluded parliamentary polls. Rajya Sabha MPs are elected by MLAs in states.
The Rajya Sabha vacancies arose in Maharashtra after two sitting members -- Piyush Goyal and Udayanraje Bhonsle (both from BJP) -- were elected to the Lok Sabha.
Asked if key posts were going to one family, Bhujbal maintained Ajit Pawar did not decide Sunetra Pawar’s nomination.
“The decision to field Sunetra Pawar was taken by the party’s core group. It was not decided by him (Ajit Pawar) alone. It was a collective decision,” Bhujbal asserted.
Asked whether he was disappointed over not being fielded in the Rajya Sabha polls, the Cabinet minister shot back, “Can you see it on my face? I have learnt to respect collective decision-making and have been doing it for the past 57 years. Be it the Shiv Sena or the NCP, decisions are taken after discussions with people and not as per one person’s will.”
The 76-year-old politician has been in the Shiv Sena and the Congress and joined the NCP when Sharad Pawar formed the party in June 1999. The NCP suffered a split when Ajit Pawar and eight other MLAs, including Bhujbal, joined the Shiv Sena-BJP government in July 2023 as ministers.
Earlier, Bhujbal, a prominent OBC leader, was keen on contesting the Lok Sabha polls from Nashik, but NCP's alliance partner Shiv Sena led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde fielded its candidate from the constituency. The seat in North Maharashtra was won by former CM Uddhav Thackeray’s Shiv Sena (UBT).
The NCP, the BJP and the Shiv Sena are constituents of the ruling Mahayuti alliance.
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Amit Shah to hold key meeting on Manipur
New Delhi (PTI): Union Home Minister Amit Shah will on Monday hold a key meeting to review the security situation in Manipur and is expected to chalk out a strategy to handle the "volatile" situation in the northeastern state, sources said.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval, Union Home Secretary Govind Mohan and Intelligence Bureau Director Tapan Deka, among other top officials, are expected to attend the meeting, they said.
Shah also took stock of the security situation in Manipur on Sunday after cancelling his election rallies in Maharashtra.
The situation in Manipur, which has been reeling from ethnic strife since May last year, has been volatile following protests and violence after the recovery of bodies of women and children.
Shah will hold a key meeting and review the situation in Manipur on Monday. He is likely to give directions for handling the current "volatile" situation in the state, the sources said.
Irate mobs set fire to the residences of three more BJP legislators, one of whom is a senior minister, and a Congress MLA in various districts of Imphal Valley on Saturday night even as security forces foiled an attempt by agitators to storm the ancestral residence of Chief Minister N Biren Singh.
These incidents took place even as an indefinite curfew was clamped after people, agitated by the killing of three women and three children by militants in Jiribam district, attacked the residences of three state ministers and six MLAs earlier on Saturday.
Enraged people torched the houses of PWD Minister Govindas Konthoujam at Ningthoukhong, Hiyanglam's BJP MLA Y Radheshyam at Langmeidong Bazar, Wangjing Tentha's BJP MLA Paonam Brojen in Thoubal district and Khundrakpam's Congress MLA Th Lokeshwar in Imphal East district.
The legislators and their family members were not at home when the mobs stormed their residential compounds, vandalised properties and set the houses on fire, police said, adding the houses were partially burnt in the incidents.
On November 11, Manipur Police said 10 suspected militants were killed in a fierce gunfight with security forces after insurgents in camouflage uniforms and armed with sophisticated weapons fired indiscriminately at Borobekra police station and an adjacent CRPF camp at Jakuradhor in Jiribam.
Hours later, suspected militants allegedly abducted six civilians, including women and children from the same district, police said.
On Saturday, the Union home ministry said all security forces deployed in Manipur have been directed to take necessary steps to restore order and peace in the state.
It said armed miscreants from both communities in conflict have been indulging in violence leading to unfortunate loss of lives and disruption in public order.
The home ministry said strict action would be initiated against anyone trying to indulge in violent and disruptive activities. Seeing the fragile situation, the Centre on Thursday reimposed the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act in Manipur's six police station areas, including the violence-hit Jiribam.
More than 220 people have been killed and thousands rendered homeless in ethnic violence between Imphal Valley-based Meiteis and adjoining hills-based Kuki-Zo groups since May last year.
It started after a 'Tribal Solidarity March' was organised in the hill districts to protest against the Meitei community's demand for Scheduled Tribe (ST) status.
The ethnically diverse Jiribam, which was largely untouched by the clashes, witnessed violence after the mutilated body of a farmer was found in a field in June this year.
